Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar College

Bhima Rao Ambedkar College
University of Delhi

Motto	Atto Deepo Bhava
Type	Public
Established	1991
Chairman	Mr. Ganesh Seth
Principal	Mr. G.K. Arora
Academic staff	88
Undergraduates	1650
Postgraduates	None
Location	Wazirabad Road, Delhi
Campus	9 acre green area, Northeast District
Named After	Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
Website	[1]

Bhim Rao Ambedkar College came into existence in 1991 during the birth centenary year of Bharat Ratna Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar. It is a constituent college of the University of Delhi and is sponsored by Delhi Government to cater to the needs of higher education in trans-Yamuna area. As a co-educational institution, it is maintaining its incessant momentum on the path of progress ever since its inception in academic and extra curricular fields. The college also holds the unique distinction of being the forerunner in launching four professional courses in the university namely, B.A.(Hons) Business Economics, B.A.(Hons)Social Work, B.A.(Hons)Hindi Journalism and Mass Communication and B.A.(Hons)Applied Psychology.

Admissions

The college acts in accordance to the Delhi University Centralized Admission procedure. Admission to a course of study is based on the cut-off percentage announced through the university in June every year. Prospective students should have completed 12 years of study and must have scored the given cut-off percentage in previous qualifying examination. Foreign students are admitted as per the prescribed University guidelines.[2].Apart from aforementioned criteria, for admission to few professional courses, students have to undergo an additional All India Written Entrance Test and/or interview conducted by their respective parent departments.[3] At present four degree programs demand this requirement.

The college also holds reservations for candidates belonging to non-general category. At present 22.5% seats are reserved for SC/ST category, 27% for OBCs as per the guidelines and modalities communicated by the University vide University Letter Aca I/OBC/2007/80 , 3% for Physically Challenged candidates and 5% each for children/widow/wives of officers and men of Armed Forces killed or disabled in action, 5% for foreign students and 5% for admission on basis of sports and co-curricular distinctions, where eligible.

Each year the university also organizes centralized open days across various colleges of the university with the aim of providing all information relating to admissions, colleges and courses of the university respectively. The current years list can be found at [4] . The academic sessions starts from 16 July each year.

Academics

In step with the New Education Policy of the Govt., the college lays emphasis not just on academic inputs, but its practical application to the fast changing global scenario. Such a holistic approach synchronizes well with the current needs of the society as also the corporate and the business world so as to make education more effective and meaning. Dedicating the newly constructed building of Bhim Rao Ambedkar College to the memory of the philosopher and educationist Dr B.R. Ambedkar in 2001, Chief Minister of Delhi Smt. Sheila Dixit said,"the college would be made academically vibrant by addition of new professional courses that would make getting jobs easier for the future pass outs." As of May 2009, the college has 13 teaching departments as follows:

• Department of Business Economics.[5]
• Department of Commerce.
• Department of Economics.
• Department of Geography.
• Department of Hindi.
• Department of History.
• Department of English.
• Department of Mathematics.
• Department of Political Science.
• Department of Psychology.
• Department of Sanskrit.
• Department of Social Work.
• Department of Physical Education.

The college gives degrees on the following courses of study:

• B.A.Programme
• B.A.(Hons) Applied Psychology
• B.A.(Hons)Business Economics
• B.A.(Hons)Geography
• B.A.(Hons)Hindi Journalism and Mass Communication
• B.A.(Hons)Social Work
• B.Com
• B.Com(Hons)

Sports

Each year the college selects students with potential for excellence through its rigorous sports quota tests under the guidance of Dr. K. K. Sharma to nurture the talent and bring out the best in their aptitudes. In a short span of time, the college has successfully and diligently carved a niche on the map of University of Delhi through various achievements secured by students and the staff members at the University and National Level respectively. The college is well known for the sports such as cross country, netball, archery, pistol & rifle shooting, soft ball, athletics and relays where students have made records and secured accolades of great prestige. In 2007 Kadar khan broke the record of 100-200 meters run at University of Delhi.In 1998, Vinod Kumar created a feat and broke his own record by clocking 14 seconds less his previous time to win the Nike-St Stephen's 3.2 km run with a timing of 9.47 minutes.

At present the college has well maintained hockey, basketball, football and badminton courts. The college also has well equipped facilities for cricket, ping pong, volley ball, hand ball, chess and judo.The college has recently acquired(2007) its own shooting range and has thus become one of the five colleges of Delhi University having such a facility.. The Annual Sports Day is celebrated in the month of February each year.

Awards,Recognition & Scholarships

To honor the ideology of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, the college has provides a number of noted scholarships and prizes to promote and honor talent among current students as well as welcome potential candidates from all walks of life irrespective of caste, color, creed,sex,income and social status. Some of the Coveted Prizes and Scholarships are listed below:

• Merit-cum-means scholarships by Department of Business Economics.
• Govt. of N.C.T. Delhi, Merit Scholarship to students belonging to SC/ST.
• Delhi University and College Karamchari Union Scholarship for deserving and needy wards of non-teaching DU employees.
• Delhi University Women Association Scholarships for daughters of Jawans of Indian Army.
• Vice Chancellor Students Fun for poor/deserving and handicapped students.
• V.K. Rao Endowment Scholarship for student coming from the families of class III/IV, Du employees.
• Maa Laxmi Devi Memorial Gold Medal for best students of Hindi Journalism and Mass Communication.
• Prof. R. L. Varshney Gold Medal for the best student in Business Economics. of the college.
• Vijendra Sharmila Chopra Memorial Scholarship awarded to Blind Students.
• Shri Moti Lal Kaul Aima Memorial Scholarship for blind students.
• Manmohan Nath Dhar Endowment Scholarship and Shri Uggarsain Memorial Endowment Scholarship respectively for students whose parents annual income is less than Rs. 25000.
• Babu P.N. Singh Medal for excellence in Social Service.
• Sheetal Prasad Medal for excellence in Journalism
• Best Student Trophy of the Year.

Apart from these prizes, awards are given for academic distinction in the university examination, for distinguished performance in debates/discussions, cultural activities and sports. College colors are awarded to sportsmen/sportswomen winning distinction at inter-college events.

Prospective students can also apply for the following scholarships:

• Natinal Scholarship awarded by Department oh Higher Education, Government of India[6]
• Delhi University All India Competitive Scholarship.[7]

College Infrastructure

The college is spread over 9 acres of lush green area in the Northeast district of Delhi on the banks of a stream flowing through the revered Yamuna river. The aim of the college is to develop into a self-sustained friendly campus environment with the maximum possible facilities. Backed by the idealogy the college has the following facilities:

Computer Lab

The college maintains a two-storey well structured computer laboratory situated in Media Block since 2005. The laboratory is well eqipped with the latest technology and every convenient facility such as wireless network, Client/server architecture, facility of scanning, digital voice recording and internet connectivity is procured. Presently internet is provided through a broadband connection and a radio link tower installed within the college premises and the University of Delhi has released the frequency. All operational units of the college are fully networked with CAT-5 cable with access to internet facility.The laboratory personnel have developed the ‘Integrated College Management System’ that encourages various Departments to work on the software based on client/server environment, which would ultimately help the staff to access their respective records online including salary statement, GPF statement, leave record, time-table, list of students etc. It also manages the ‘Digital Hub’ in the library, where the faculty members can access reputed journals provided by the University of Delhi free of cost The laboratory is also a host to the East Delhi Centre for DU-NIIT joint programme for the benefit of undergraduate SC/ST students.

Library

An independent two storeyed and a well equipped spacious library is one of the prized possessions of the college. The library has adequately spaced stacks, enough reading area and houses around 22000 books. Each year the stack is added with new books as per requirements. Besides, the college maintains current and previous issues of relevant national and international published journals and magazines like Business India, Computers Todays, Economic and Political Weekly, India Today, National Geographic, Outlook, Frontier, Frontline, Reader's Digest, Taipei to name a few. in Hindi the library receives Aajkal, Hans, India Today, Kurukshetra, Kadambani, Manushi, Mukta and Yojana among others.The library also has arrangements to provide books to the deserving students coming from economically weaker sections of the society. Separate study cabins are made available to the faculty members. The library is fully computerized with online facilities available to students and faculty of the college.

Seminar Hall

The college has a seminar hall with a capacity of 250. It frequently hosts seminars, workshops and lectures where prominent people from the industry and commerce are invited to share their intellect and experiences with the undergraduate students.The college has recently developed a fully equipped and well-structured conference room to cater to the growing needs of students from professional courses for group discussions, seminars, presentations, panel discussions etc which form a vital part of their curriculum.

Banking

The college is host to a fully-computerized branch of Oriental Bank of Commerce which provides banking facilities to the teaching & non-teaching staff, students of the college and residents of the area. The college is also planning to provide an ATM facility.

Medical Centre

The facility of WUS Health Centre (East Campus) has been provided in the residential campus of the college.( It should be noted that the college does not provide residential facilities to students at present)The centre caters to the needs of university employees residing in trans-Yamuna area. Aid facility is available free of cost to the college students.

The college maintains power back up,canteen, photostat and other necessities at the university subsidized rates. A 24 hour operational petrol pump is found exactly adjacent to the college premises providing convenience to students, faculty and residents of the area alike.The college is also taking initiatives on the recommendations given by the Accessible University of Delhi project report prepared by Samakhayam in Feb 2008.

Campus Life

College Student's Council

the college has a very dynamic and active Students' Council. The council is elected by the students through common franchise as per the guidelines provided by the Honorable Supreme Court of India regarding Model Code of Conduct for DUSU elections. The elections are usually held during August-September each year. The committees of Staff Council appoints the Cultural and Sports' secretaries respectively. One seat of four posts- President, Vice President, Secretary and Joint Secretary- is reserved for female student.All office member hold office till 30 April of the consecutive session in normal courses, provided they do not suffer from any disqualification during the term of the office.

The election of the Students’ Council (with Dr. M. S. Vats as Advisor) was held on 7th September, 2007. The elected office bearers of the Council are : (i) Pradeep Kumar Kasana, President; (ii) Rajat Gosain, Vice-President; (iii) Poonam Chouhan, Secretary and; (iv) Ankit Aggrawal, Joint Secretary. George Wills and Awanish were nominated Sports Secretary and Cultural Secretary, respectively. The oath taking ceremony was held on 27th September, 2007 in the college premises. Mr. Jaspal Singh, DCP, North East District, Delhi administered the oath of office and secrecy to the office bearers.

Student Societies and Activities

Each year the college organizes an Annual Cultural festival 'Chetna' with a vision to attain the epitome of cultural excellence among students. The colleges publishes it annual magazine of the same name by inviting articles on wide ranging issues to help students to cultivate writing and literary tastes and also to encourage creative articulation. Apart from that each department has its own society and enjoy complete independence in carrying out various activities.

Student Placements

Apart from the Common Placement Cell inaugurated in 2005, each department providing professional degree have their separate placement cell to tailor made the recruitment procedure as per their curriculum and requirements. The location of the college is certainly a advantage since it can tap potential recruiters in the NCR Industrial Belt of the region namely Ghaziabad, Noida and Gurgaon respectively. Over the period, the students of Business Economics have been successfully recruited to various accredited and multinational companies suck as Bank of America, Capital IQ, E-valueserve, RNCOS, Money Bag, Quest Services, Genpact to name a few.

Future Vision

The college is gearing up for a new academic environment. The Government of Delhi has very recently given an administrative approval of 12 proposals related to auditorium, sports, car parking, etc. These will help the college in expanding its infrastructural base required for creating better and healthy academic environment. As a part of college vision, it is working hard on developing some job-oriented short term Add-on Courses; and other schemes like - Green Cadets to further motivate students to undertake community development and ‘Earn While Learn’ for the benefit of students. The college is also exploring ways to develop an Interdisciplinary Research Centre and bring out a Social Science and Language Journal to stimulate research and publication by the teaching faculty. Developing Rain Harvesting, Solar Paneling, Herbal Parks are other areas of our concern.

Controversies

In April 2007 the college came in news for wrong reasons when former chairman of the college Vinay Sharma and an applicant Dr. Madhusudan Tripathi of CCSMU alleged that the recent appointment of college principal Dr. G.K. Arora has ignored all the rules and procedures of the university as his application was accepted after the last date of submission and the applicant's application was denied on the same grounds. However, the vice-chancellor of Delhi university Professor Deepak Pental and the then current chairman of the college Dr Chaturvedi rubbished the claims stating that as per ordinance of the Delhi University, it was very clear that the Governing Body can receive the applications after the due date.Prof. Pental said,"if good candidates apply after due date they would certainly be considered".As for Dr. Tripathi's accusations, Mr. Chaturvedi added he had entertained all those who applied after the last date and all the charges were "baseless".

On 29 July 2008, another row erupted against Dr. G.K. Arora when Delhi University’s executive council ordered an inquiry into a complaint against him for allegedly denying co-authorship of a book— ‘Globalisation and Reorganising Indian States: Retrospect and Prospects’ —to a young researcher Mr Sanjeev Kumar. Mr. Kumar claimed that Dr. Arora merely acknowledged his work without mentioning him as a co-author as against what was decided. He even had a meeting with the publisher and Dr. Arora who assured him to correct the "printing error" in the new print of the book but no such action was taken till date.On his part, Dr. Arora ran down on Sanjeev’s credibility stating,‘‘He is a third divisoner and I took pity on him. He had access to my computer and took away all the written material. Also, I am an economist and he is a political science student.’’

In August 2008 HC denied the appointment of M P Singh as lecturer at the College since he hadn't qualified the National Examination Test (NET) prior to its appointment. The college however defended its appointment and maintained that after a subsequent UGC notification amended the eligibility criteria Singh's PhD awarded in March 2001 made him eligible even if he wasn't a NET qualifier. But HC was unequivocal that "eligibility criteria which might undergo a change after the last date of submission of applications cannot be given retrospective effect,"and even refused to allow any service benefit accrued to Singh since his appointment in 2002.But HC also maintained that even he can apply afresh for the post along with other candidates.

Nearby Places of Attraction

The college is well connected to the Delhi Metro service. The nearest stations are Seelampur and Shahdara. It is also easily assessable through Delhi Transport Corporation and Delhi Bus Rapid Transit System notably via Outer Ring Road service.

Students often travel to nearby East Delhi Mall(popularly known as EDM), Waves located at Kaushambi near Ghaziabad; Great India Place and Centre Stage Mall (popularly called CSM) located at Sec. 18, Noida to savor world famous cuisines and restaurants or on a branded to local shopping spree. It takes around 20 minutes to reach North campus via Bus or Metro where you can visit the famous campus food joints and the noted Kamla Nagar market. One nearest reasonable self catering service is found at Nirankari Sarovar, Buradi Chowk.

Few Attractions close to East Delhi[8]:

• Akshardasm Temple -- 7 kms
• Parliament House -- 16 kms
• UN Offices -- 20 kms
• India Gate -- 16 kms
• Red Fort -- 15 kms
• Qutab Minar -- 24 kms
• Humayun's Tomb -- 16 kms
• Pragati Maidan -- 13 kms
• Embassies, Government offices, Ministries -- 23 kms
• Rashtrapati Bhawan -- 16 kms
• Bahai Temple -- 16 kms
• Raj Ghat -- 14 kms
• Jama Masjid -- 15 kms

See Also

• University of Delhi
• Professor Deepak Pental